This ASTER image was acquired on December 12, 2000, and covers an area of 38 x 48 km. Pine Island Glacier has undergone a steady loss of elevation with retreat of the grounding line in recent decades. Now, space imagery has revealed a wide new crack that some scientists think will soon result in a calving event. Glaciologist Robert Bindschadler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center predicts this crack will result in the calving of a major iceberg, probably in less than 18 months. Discovery of the crack was possible due to multi-year image archives and high resolution imagery. This image is located at 74.1 degrees south latitude and 105.1 degrees west longitude.

The U.S. science team is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The Terra mission is part of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.